U.S. stocks rallied on employment data that degraded month over month, but was not as bad as had been anticipated in some quarters... while poor ISM Service data was completely ignored.  It certainly was an interesting week where a few reports the market viewed as positive, overshadowed many more that were showing weakening.   The S&P 500 gained 1.3% and NASDAQ 1.5%, finishing off a dramatic 3 day rally from oversold levels heading into the Labor Day holiday.  For the week both indexes gained 3.7%, to offset a poor August.

On the economic front were 2 very closely watched economic reports - the monthly unemployment data, and ISM Services (which represents 80%+ of the economy).  Both were weaker than the previous month, but with whisper numbers of negative private job creation any positive job growth was seen as a positive.  So while the trend is down, it was "better than expectation" which normally is enough to get the market rallying.  The headline number is not worth mentioning as it is affected by census workers, but the private jobs figure was +67,000 versus an expectation of +40,000.  In an economy with over 110M workers, one would not think a difference of 27,000 jobs would bring such cheer to the market, but this was the case.  Of course the U.S. economy requires in excess of 125,000 jobs each month simply to keep up with population growth, so that bar was not beat - and the 67,000 is significantly lower than the 107,000 jobs created in July.  The main positive in the report was wages were up 0.3%.  The unemployment rate increased from 9.5% to 9.6% as over half a million people re-entered the workforce; hence even as there was an increase in jobs the number of people entering the workforce was a much larger figure, leading to a higher unemployment rate.

As for ISM Services it dropped quite dramatically month over month and missed expectations of 53, by coming in at 51.5.  The good cheer of the employment data seemed to drown out this report.

Ten year bond yields jumped from 2.63% to 2.71%; this is the first time yields have breached 2.7% since the first half of August.  Crude oil fell 0.6%, gold 0.3% while silver gained 1.2% to close just below $20.

European markets were still open upon the release of the U.S. labor data and traded upward in kind; Britain & France gained 1.1%, while Germany rallied 0.8%.

Asian markets were mixed with Japan up 0.6%, China flat, and India down 0.2%.

Brazil fell 0.2%.